Future

Both of our present versions (of the same program) work best with Windows 2000 & XP & 2003 server & Vista. Both are high performance. Behind the data-entry screen, it is more up to date than any program we have seen. All Stratford software is multi-user, in fact, we have never published a single-user (rinky-dink) application. The program has been a true 32-bit application since the summer of 1993. It is old, proven and it works. It is the best healthcare billing program available. It will work for the largest customers and it is priced for the smallest. It has been fully Y2K tested by EDS for Medicare billing. What other software vendor could make that statement in January 1998?

We keep our program current with all the changes in healthcare billing, especially the changes in EDI. That is our first commitment. We want to have a program that works first and then make it as beautiful as we can - second. All electronic transmissions are required to be in the ANSI X.12 transaction sets. We have had customers transmitting heavy volume in this format since April, 1994. What other billing software company could make that claim in 1994?  Version 4010 of the ANSI X.12 formats is required by the 1996 HIPAA federal law. We already had it coded several years ago and it is now in the hands of all customers who have Stratford's version 1812 or later. v4010 was approved in June 2002 (by Medicare) and v4010-A1 (addendum) was approved in June 2003 (by Medicare). All customers with our most recent 'dos-compiled' and 'windows-compiled' versions have it. v4010 was approved by EDS/NHIC for Medicare claim transmission in June 2002. We began distributing the 'A1' (addendum to v4010) version in June 2003.

We have had ANSI X.12 v5010 coded and in all updates as of January 2007. All current versions of the Stratford program have the ANSI X.12 V5010 A1 transactions sets integrated now. There is a section in the manual that shows how to activate it. You can create some claims in a pre-EDI claim file. Using that claim file, you can create the v4010 version format. Then with a simple change in the EDI control screen, create the v5010 version format from that same claim file. We expect HIPAA to approve v5010 to replace v4010 so that the ICD10 codes can be used to replace ICD9 (just one of several reasons). ICD-10-CM (diagnosis codes) and ICD-10-PCS (procedure codes) were adopted by almost all countries in the world except the USA. The Stratford windows version was designed to be compatible with ICD10 and will accommodate all the known variations/extensions of ICD-10. The present Stratford data table field is 9 characters alpha numeric. ICD-9 is 5 characters (about 13,000 codes) and ICD-10 is 7 characters (about 120,000 codes).

Our "Windows only" version is available for download from this web site. If you are interested, just fill out the form on this web site.  We will send you an email with an ID/password for downloading. We can also deliver it on CD if you do not have sufficient bandwidth to download the program. The dos-compiled version is about 17 megabytes and the windows-compiled version is about 130+ megabytes (compressed). Neither version is well-suited for modem download. We recommend DSL or cable modem connections only.

The windows-compiled version allows you to convert data from your existing dos-compiled Stratford program so you can try it and see how it works. You can have the windows-compiled version and old dos-compiled version working on the same computer. The conversion process works across networks and every other type of hardware installation that we have tested.

Scheduling and related non-billing functions:  The Windows version has a graphical scheduler. It is a comprehensive, generic, scheduler. It has 'hooks' that will allow us to expand its functions even more in the future.

Electronic Healthcare Records: ( EHR, EMR, EPR) Stratford has clinical medical records for all specialties in the program now. This is a fully integrated module - no importing or exporting data. We plan to have extensions to the present database structure as soon as the government adopts a standard. We also plan to make software available that will allow Stratford customers to exchange patient information with other implementations of the government standard. More information here.

e-Prescriptions - Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) - should reduce the errors in prescribing. The prescription will be entirely electronic. The doctor will compose the prescription on his/her computer/pda and transmit the prescription directly to the pharmacy or use a 'mail box' intermediary. As soon as standards are established, Stratford plans to  implement it as a fully integrated module at no additional charge from Stratford (there may be fees imposed by various organizations). We have the screens coded now and the tables constructed using the draft specifications so it should not take long to finish as soon as the final specifications are available. More information here.

Database structure: We are using Microsoft developer tools. We distribute a royalty free database that has no pre-defined number of users. This database has no additional charges per workstation and/or server configurations. This will work for all healthcare provider organizations.

We will attempt to allow our users to have full and unrestricted access to their data from their word processing and reporting applications. We recommend 'OpenOffice' for those clients who do not have Microsoft office. We find it to be fully compatible and even easier to use.

Longer term products: One of the products that we plan to develop is a complete billing, scheduling system for IPAs and HMOs. Hundreds or thousands of providers could be linked with a single scheduling system. A primary care provider could allocate a number of visits for a patient with a particular specialist on-line in real-time. The billing and encounter reporting could be an integral part of the system. The payer organization would have built-in, incredibly flexible reporting capabilities. The reporting could be done today on yesterday's data. A new level of cost / risk management would be possible. Most current and future internet browsers may display the screens.

Long term plans include SQL, Clustering, Internet Server technologies. See back issues of the newsletter for more details.

We have been doing development work with SQL servers since January 1995. This technology offers increased security and scalability. This means that you can have thousands of simultaneous users working in a fault-tolerant environment. Some versions of SQL offer automatic recovery from power failures and other system crashes. Some versions of SQL can be backed up while users are accessing the data.

Linux: We have been asked about our support of the Linux operating system. At this time, we cannot offer any support at all. We are aware of some of our users and subcontract programmers who now use Linux as a file server operating system with our dos-compiled as well as the windows-compiled products with no problems. If you do use Linux, you would be responsible for any problems that occur. We are certainly interested in hearing about successes and failures with Linux as we may support it in the future.

Long term requirements: No hardware or software upgrade requirements are anticipated for future versions other than those required for Windows 2000/XP/Vista and successor operating systems. These are true 32-bit products and are not compatible in any way with 16-bit software. The products are only for users of Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista and successor operating systems.  We have made made no effort to maintain compatibility with DOS or Windows 3.x.

We are aware of people using our dos-compiled version on Windows95 and NT and we will do our best to support them, but that may not be possible much longer. At this time, the transmit and print programs that are distributed with the dos-compiled software are true-windows programs and require Win2000/XP/Vista or later operating system. Our policy is to support products up to five years if possible.

The windows-compiled version will not work at all with Windows98/ WinNT/ WinME or any earlier operating systems. Since our product is an application that is dependent on the resources of the hardware and operating system, we are forced to change with them.

The windows-compiled version of Stratford software is more powerful than anything you have seen in this market. We said the same thing in 1989 when we released the dos-compiled product. We were three to four years ahead of the competition then.

Software: Although we are not aware of any healthcare payers that accept claims in XML format, we believe this type of format may eventually replace all other formats. If you read other statements in this web site, you will conclude that we think the ANSI X.12 formats are the greatest and that we support them completely. This is true, but there are good reasons why we believe that XML will eventually replace all other formats. While the ANSI X.12, ASTM, and HL7 formats are variable length records/segments and that is good, they all have fixed field placement. This makes corrections/additions more difficult. Having components make up each field helps but it is obviously a "patch". XML allows infinite additions and corrections. This is not the place to discuss XML in depth as it would take several thousand web pages to do it. The present Stratford parser can handle XML formats with few changes and we believe we can make the transition when/if it comes in a few months. Much of the messaging in our windows-compiled version is done with XML now. There is a utility built into the present Windows version that will dump any data table into XML. XML has a significant disadvantage for large transmissions: it's size is one-third or more larger than the same transmission in ANSI X.12 837 for example. Most of this disadvantage can probably be eliminated by using a zipped file as was used by many payers with the old NSF formats. The Stratford program has integrated 'zip' capabilities so this will be easy for us.

Future versions: We are currently working with the Python language. Our plan is to use this cross-platform language for future versions. If we do use Python, we should be able to support Linux and Apple as well as Windows. We believe Python is a much more powerful and versatile language compared to the Microsoft VFP language that we now use.  Google uses Python internally and supports user group meetings in Mountain View, CA, a few miles South of Stratford. See www.python.org for more information about the Python language. Python is used by YouTube.com, NASA, Rackspace.com, Industrial Light and Magic (ilm.com - George Lucus / Star Wars), AstraZeneca, Honeywell and many others.

We will probably convert the present Windows-compiled version database structure to a SQL (pronounced sequel) database like PostgreSQL (pronounced: post-gres-q-l or postgres-sequel Click to Hear). Note: there are no royalty requirements for PostgreSQL, so the price of the Python version would be similar to the present version. PostgreSQL will run a stored procedure written in Python. The name refers to the project's origins as a "post-Ingres" database, the original authors having also developed the Ingres database. Ingres was first created as a research project at the University of California, Berkeley

Microsoft will support the compiler we now use until 2015. This means the conversion to Python would probably be scheduled for 2014 - 2020. The change should be smoother than the conversion from DOS to Windows. VFP and Python are both object oriented languages with inheritance. The Windows version's database structure is very similar to what we want in SQL.  We probably will not need to change any data field names. Those clients who have custom report programs will probably be able to work with the new version easily.

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Last modified: 05/27/08